When Jean-René began to discuss the events of the night before her disappearance, she turned her attention patiently to him. She listened to the discussions and watched the video clips, showing no emotion. Each of the team members told their side of the story. When Bahati began to recount the events from the night of the disappearance, Lauren seemed strangely disinterested, tugging at a string on the sleeve of her shirt. She watched the video from her web cam but again, it was almost as if she didn’t realize all that actually happened to her. Rowan tugged at the whiskers on his chin as he watched her.
Finally, everyone stopped, just looking at each other. “Is that it?” Lauren asked.
“That’s everything I have,” Jean-René said, glancing at Bahati, who shrugged.
“Well I’m not done.” Jess finally spoke up.
“What else do you have?” Rowan asked, remembering he’d cut her off before.
“Well, Rob and Bahati had the presence of mind to get a cast of the footprint they found at the edge of base camp after Lauren was abducted. In my opinion, this is one of the most telling pieces of evidence you brought back from the mountain,” she said. She stood, taking up the second cast. “This print is approximately 20” long and 6” wide. The cast you took from the riverbank was only about 15” long and 5” wide.” Jess put the two next to each other under the document cam, projecting the image onto the screen. One was obviously bigger than the other.
“So, we have a larger specimen?” Rowan asked.
“One would think,” she said, curtly. “My calculations from the first cast, which my peers have confirmed, suggest we have a creature approximately seven feet tall, approximately 370 pounds. This cast is different. You’ll notice the ball of the foot sunk in quite a bit deeper, not the toes. There’s no evidence of dermal ridges, though we do have some hair imprint. The skeletal structure is significantly different. I managed to salvage a fiber from the plaster. I sent it to the lab for analysis. It came back as a synthetic polyester, most commonly used in fake fur. This footprint is a hoax. A hoax-monger in a monkey suit ran through your camp, and abducted Lauren right in front of your own camera. This print is made by a 250-pound human, carrying your 120-pound field producer.”
She appeared to feel vindicated for having to wait, and she stood smugly over the chaos she’d created. A flood of questions came at her like a hurricane. Lauren remained in her chair, while Rowan stood up, pounding his fists on the conference table to silence the room.
“But the first print was genuine. Right?”
“Yes,” she said. “It appears to be genuine. There are databases of hundreds of these things. I compared it to every single one. We’ve got more fakes then genuine ones, but this one shares many of the common traits of those believed to be real.” She held up the larger print. “This one matches every hoax we’ve ever seen,” she dropped the fake cast on the table, and it shattered. “Hoax-monger in a monkey suit.”
Chapter 22
Jess’ words resounded in Rowan’s head for hours. Hoax-monger in a monkey suit. He pounded his fist in the counter. Lauren flinched. Rowan wasn’t prone to fits of rage, but his dander was definitely up.
“Well, at least we know one thing,” she said, pushing her food around on her plate.
“What’s that?” He paced a few more moments before coming to sit down at the table across from her. “What?”
“I wasn’t kidnapped by Bigfoot.”
He buried his eyes in his hands “Jeez,” he snarled. “It was a lot easier for me to stomach the thought that a Bigfoot did this to you.” He put his hand over hers, his thumb brushing over the small, cool diamond. It softened his anger just a bit.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” she asked. It took a moment for him to respond.
“What?”
“We have to go back.”
“We can’t go back.”
“We have to,” she said. “You know I’m right.”
“We are not going back. Dammit,” he snapped.
“We don’t have any other choice. We have to get more data, Rowan. We have to. The truth, remember?”
“Jess sent her report to the FBI. It’s in their hands to investigate now.”
“We have to go back,” Lauren repeated.
“We are not going back!” he snapped. “You still have your arm in a sling. You could have died.”
“But I didn’t.”
“You could have.”
“You know I am right.”
“We’re not going back,” he stated flatly. He set his jaw, but his lip quivered. “We’re not.”
“We have to.”
“No. We don’t.”
* * *
Lauren was miffed. She was tired of being confined to bed, tired of trying to make herself comfortable on the sofa. She thought the recliner was slightly better. Her mood was brooding and restless. Rowan wasn’t any better off. The lack of sleep wore on him and he often went on long runs to try and clear his mind. It didn’t seem to be helping.
Limited to watching television and surfing the internet Lauren had no such opportunity to ease her stress. She was too bored to really pay attention, least of all to the television. She’d already made three tours through the ninety-some channels before she got fed up. She slung the remote across the room and nearly hit Rowan’s head with it.
He glanced up from the computer. “What?”
“I’m bored,” she moaned. “I’m tired of sitting around.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Take me to Washington,” she insisted.
“Where do you want to go on our honeymoon?” He returned his attention to the work.
“Washington.”
“I’m serious. I’m not taking you on another investigation until we decide where we’re going on our honeymoon. And we aren’t honeymooning anywhere where there’s something to investigate.”
“Like there’s anywhere like that.” She leaned back the recliner.
“Lauren,” he pleaded. “Help me here.”
“Where have we not been?”
“So far, we’ve missed Antarctica and Alaska,” he said. “There’s a reason for that. I don’t like to be cold.”
“Then we’ll go to the beach,” she said.
“Bermuda?” He smiled. He thought of their investigation in the Bermuda triangle.
“No way,” she scolded. “I liked Bermuda, but you drank two pitchers of rum swizzles and nearly fell off the cliff by the hotel. You scared the daylights out of me.”
“That’s the only time you ever saw me drunk.”
“For a reason.” She laughed.
“What about Mexico?” he changed the subject, smiling at her. It was the first time they’d laughed since — well, for a long time.
“Aztec and Mayan ruins,” she said, hooking a leg over the arm of the chair, kicking her foot like an impatient teenager.
“Florida?”
“Creature of the Okeefenokee Swamp.”
“North Carolina?”
“The mystery hound of Randolph County.”
“Galveston, Texas.”
“Ghosts of the Great Hurricane of 1900.”
“Greece?”
“Rosetta Stone,” she replied. “Vesuvius, the Coliseum, mysteries of the Lost Gardens of Babylon. Do you need me to keep going?”
“So much for Rome, Alexandria, and Venice too.”
“There’s only one place where there’s no mystery,” she said. He came over, sitting on the sofa beside her. She turned and hooked a long, tanned leg over his.
“Where?” He surrendered as she wormed her way over and straddled him.
“Right here,” she said, snuggling into him, resting her head on his chest, making herself comfortable.
“Oh, I’m sure there’s a few mysteries left to solve,” he grinned.
“Maybe.”
He ran his hand through her hair, twisting it between his fingers.
“I know one thing that’s no mystery.�
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“What’s that?” he asked.
“How much I love you,” she said, sitting back to look at him.
“The only mystery left is what made you finally say yes.”
Her smile became shadowed. “I’m terrified, Rowan,” she admitted, leaning back into him. He’d seen her frightened, maybe even afraid. But he’d never seen her terrified, not until the day they found her on the mountain.
“Not knowing what happened ... thinking about what could have happened. Wondering what you’d have done if you hadn’t found me. I can’t ... I won’t leave things unsettled,” she said. “You’re right. You’ve always been right. I have been stubborn and stupid. I should have said yes sooner.”
His thumb brushed the tear from her cheek, and he leaned down and kissed her. “I’m glad you said yes now,” he said. He kissed her again.
“Me too.” She agreed.
* * *
Days passed with no improvement in her mood. One afternoon, she was sitting cross-legged in the recliner, brooding. In her hands she held one of her old journals. The cover was dyed leather— a deep green — aged and cracked. The yellowing pages were full of all the things she had learned early in her academic career. Her thumb ran over the rough gold embossing that spelled out the school’s motto. Her mind swirled thinking about the knowledge contained in these pages. It paled in comparison with the knowledge that swirled in her mind now.
Veritas. Truth.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Rowan asked as he came in. He glanced over her shoulder at the book.
She held up the journal. “Cost you a dollar.”
He took it and studied the pages, thumbing through them with care. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think this was Indiana Jones’ diary,” he said. He sat down beside her. The book was filled with notes, sketches, formulae, diagrams — ramblings on every subject. Some pages were covered from corner to corner. Every usable square inch of paper had been covered in blue felt-tip ink.
“What do you know of truth?” Lauren asked.
“Was it Plato that said, the only thing I know, is that I know nothing?” Rowan asked.
“It was,” she closed her eyes and sat back. “I took a philosophy class once. We had this crusty old professor who was fond of mixing plaids. He wore these old polyester leisure suits that were two sizes too big. Awful shades of green and brown, clashed with yellow and orange. On Fridays though, he always came to class in a toga. He wore a crown of olive branches in his white hair. He looked like one of the old men in the balcony on the Muppet Show,” she laughed. She remembered he always smelled of moth balls, Old Spice and cigar smoke. “He would stand on his desk and tell hippie jokes.”
“Hippie jokes?” Rowan chuckled. He’d never heard this story before. It made him feel better that her memory was returning with such clarity.
A faint smile crossed her weary face. She clutched the journal to her heart. Fond memories were contained within.
“Remember any of them?”
She chuckled. “A few,” she said. They were written down, along with all her class notes. She always expected one of them to show up on a quiz. “Why couldn’t the lifeguard save the hippie from drowning?”
“I don’t know,” Rowan smiled.
“He was too far out, man.” She waited for a reaction. He groaned. That was the joke that had turned up in her final exam. It was an essay question asking them to pontificate on the meaning of the phrase far out, man. Lauren had gotten an A on that test. “When the Network first approached me about doing our show, I wanted to call it simply Veritas,” she said. “But they were dead set against it. They said it was too cerebral. We came to a consensus. It was this journal that made us arrive at The Veritas Codex.”
“It does have a certain ring to it,” Rowan said.
Lauren looked at him with concern written in her features. “Have you ever studied philosophy?”
“Only at the bar in Estes Park on poetry night,” he said. “There was usually a lot more drinking than thinking.”
“What is truth?” She asked rhetorically. “Philosophers spend a lot of time contemplating the concept of Veritas. In the Graeco-Roman world, the goddess Veritas was the personification of all that was understood as truth. Every Roman citizen was expected to dedicate their lives to the journey of seeking truth.” Lauren said. “Dr. Philpott taught me a lot about how we think and what we know of truth. But ...” She struggled to find the right words. To find a way to make him understand something she couldn’t even understand herself. “There are some who say truth is timeless ... eternal. Some say truths are omnitemporal entities.”
“Omni what?” Rowan blurted. “Look, this is all ... obviously ... way over my head. What does it matter?”
Lauren debated how to say what she needed to say. “Rowan, something happened while I was ... gone. I don’t know how to explain it.” He looked afraid as she considered how to tell him. “I see this word, Veritas, in a whole new way now.” She turned back to the cover. “I know it means truth ... but now, I get it. I really get it. It means so much ... more ...”
“More?”
“Anselm of Canterbury wrote, I do not recall ever having found a definition of truth; but if you wish, let us inquire as to what truth is by going through the various things in which we say there is truth. There’s more to truth than most can comprehend. Where there is balance in the universe, there is truth. There’s a breadth of meaning that human language cannot adequately express. It’s more than we can grasp. Truth pales in the shadow of all it encompasses.” Her voice took on a misty tone. “It was more than I ever comprehended until now. There’s a goodness and comfort that comes with truth. I didn’t get it before. I see it now.”
“What’s different now, Lauren?” Rowan asked.
Her expression remained neutral as she spoke. “Me. I’m different.”
The heavy arch of his brow came down into a flat line over his face.
“Something happened to me.” She thumbed to the back of the journal and read from the pages. “Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate with total attention on its pursuit,” she quoted. “Gulag Archipelago. What happened to me? Well now my full attention is on the truth, whether I want it or not.”
“Lauren.” Rowan started, but she cut him off.
“He also said, Truth is seldom pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter. I know it’s not going to be easy. But I know what I need to do.”
“Bitter is one thing,” he reached over and took her hand. “Deadly is another.” She turned to him. “You could have died out there. I thought you had.” His voice trembled. “I couldn’t bear to lose you, Lauren. That is a truth of which I am quite sure.”
A stolid expression overtook her countenance. “Truth is a story,” she said as she reached for his cheek. She caressed it. He melted into her palm. “Our story is far from over, but ... I can’t let it end like this. I need truth. I need balance. I’m afraid I’m going mad. There’s so much swirling around in my head. I can’t focus. Can’t concentrate. I need to know what happened. If I don’t, I will go insane.”
“You’re not going insane, Lauren,” Rowan said. “You had a head injury and you suffered a traumatic attack. It’s going to take some time. You need to see a counselor or a psychiatrist. You don’t need to go back to Washington.”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She forced a smile in his direction. “The truth ... is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”
“Who said that? Plato?”
She shook her head. “Professor Dumbledore. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” Her expression went distant. The shine of tears formed in the corners of her eyes. Her lip trembled. Her knuckles went white as she clutched the book in her hand. “You have no idea,” her voice dropped an octave. “No idea what’s racing around in my brain. There are words I shouldn’t know.
They run like a news ticker behind my eyes when I try to sleep. Letters and symbols of ancient text ... words no one else can read. Words few can comprehend.”
“Like Cherokee?” Rowan puzzled.
“Cherokee, Latin, Greek, Arabic, Toltec, Egyptian ...” she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I keep thinking, maybe I’m hallucinating. I have to know what happened to me, Rowan. It’s like a cancer that gnaws on my brain.” She stood and paced, running her hand through her hair. Her finger found the scar behind her ear. The skin tingled beneath her touch. “Maybe the head injury took more of a toll than I remembered.”
“Maybe you’re tired,” he said. He took her hand and pulled her into him. She buried her face in his chest. She let him wrap his arms around her. He kissed her head and brushed her hair back from her face. “Come on,” he kissed her softly. Her lips responded. “I’ll tuck you in.”
* * *
She let him put her to bed but refused to let him sleep. She insisted she was up to a bit of lovemaking, as long as he was gentle with her. He made love to her slowly, attentively, molding his body to hers, warming her from the inside out and reminding her of all the reasons he was happy to be with her. He showed her how relieved he was to have her safely beneath him.
She fell asleep in the afterglow, wrapped in his arms. He held her long into the night, watching her sleep, dreading the thought of what she was insisting had to be done. There had to be a better way to help her remember. There just had to be.
* * *
A frantic scream broke the quiet dawn. Rowan bolted up from a dead slumber. Lauren thrashed about in the bed. He grabbed her uninjured arm and pulled her into him to stop her from striking out.
“Lauren!” He shook her gently. “Wake up! It’s okay. You’re safe.”
“No!” she cried. “No!” Her screams faded into sobs.
He held her until the tears passed. He dried her cheek with his thumb and wrapped her in the circle of his arms. He lay her down, tucking her head under his chin. She smelled of rosemary and mint and all things feminine. He breathed her in and tried to lend her some of his warmth. She shivered and he stroked her head, tenderly. His hand found the bare line of healing flesh where her hair seemed to part naturally over her ear. He realized she was trembling, not just shivering.
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